Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Therefore, Metrodorus seems to me to have spoken excellently in that letter in which he addresses his sister on the loss of her son of excellent disposition: “Every good of mortals is mortal.” He speaks of these goods toward which people run. For that true good does not die, it is certain and eternal, wisdom and virtue; this alone falls as immortal to mortals.

​But people are so wicked and so forgetful of where they are going, and where each day drives them, that they wonder that they lose anything, though they are going to lose all things in a single day. Whatever it is, you are registered as its master, it is in your possession, but it is not yours; nothing is firm to the infirm, nothing is eternal and invincible to the fragile. It is as necessary to perish as to lose, and this itself, if we understand it, is a consolation. Lose with an equal mind, for to perish is necessary.

​What help then do we find against these losses? This: that we hold lost things in memory, and do not allow the fruit we perceived from them to pass away with them. To possess is snatched away, to have possessed never. He is extremely ungrateful who, when he has lost, owes nothing for what was received. Chance snatches the thing from us, but leaves its use and fruit with us, which we lose by the injustice of our longing.

​Say to yourself: “Of those things which seem terrible, nothing is invincible. Many have already conquered individual things: Mucius fire, Regulus the cross, Socrates poison, Rutilius exile, Cato death brought by the sword; let us too conquer something.”

​Conversely, those things which, as beautiful and happy, attract the crowd, have been despised by many and often. Fabricius as general rejected riches, and as censor branded them. Tubero judged poverty worthy both of himself and of the Capitol, when, using earthenware at a public dinner, he showed that a man ought to be content with those things which the gods even now use. Father Sextius rejected honors; though born such that he ought to have entered public affairs, he did not accept the broad stripe when the deified Julius offered it. For he understood that what could be given could also be snatched away. Let us too do something courageously ourselves; let us be among the examples.

​Why have we failed? Why are we despairing? Whatever could be done can be done, if only we purify our mind and follow nature, from which for one who strays, desiring and fearing are necessary, and serving fortuitous things is necessary. It is permitted to return to the path, it is permitted to be restored to integrity; let us be restored, so that we may endure pains, in whatever way they invade the body, and say to fortune: “Your business is with a man; seek someone you can conquer.”

​By these discourses and similar ones, that violence of the ulcer is mitigated, which indeed I wish to be softened, and either cured, or to stand still and grow old with him. But I am secure about him; it is our loss that is at stake, we from whom an excellent old man is being snatched. For he himself is full of life, to which he does not desire anything to be added for his own sake, but for the sake of those to whom he is useful.

​He acts generously in that he lives. Another would already have ended these torments ; he thinks it as disgraceful to flee death as to flee to death. “What then? Will he not depart if the situation advises?” Why should he not depart, if no one can any longer make use of him, if he will do nothing else than attend to pain?

​This is, my Lucilius, to learn philosophy in practice and to be exercised for truth: to see what mind a wise man has against death, against pain, when the former approaches and the latter presses. What must be done must be learned from the doer. Up to now, it has been dealt with by arguments, whether anyone could resist pain, whether death, when applied, could submit even great minds.

​What need is there for words? Let us go to the actual case: neither death makes him stronger against pain, nor pain against death. Against both he trusts in himself, neither does he patiently suffer pain in the hope of death, nor does he gladly die out of weariness of pain; he bears the former, and awaits the latter. FAREWELL.